Truth and Lie

Truth and Lie: Finding the Naked Truth in a Dressed-Up Age addresses one of the most significant challenges facing the Christian church in the 21st century--the problem of Christian Nationalism. With uncommon courage, intellectual honesty, and profound pastoral sensitivity, the author does not resort to shop-worn slogans or prejudiced partisan rhetoric, but he carefully examines Christian Nationalism in light of Scripture, history, and contemporary research. This book provides solutions. It invites readers to measure every political or religious claim against the eternal gospel. It is not merely a timely book, but an essential read for those who wish to understand the dangerous era in which we live while remaining firmly anchored in Scripture and committed to the faith. When the Church's fixation on political power marries the goals of the Kingdom of God with the aims of the State, and when the cross of Christ is wrapped in a national flag, any national flag, the persecution foretold in Revelation 13 will inevitably follow. This book is a wake-up call for all who remain committed to the separation of church and state, religious freedom, and the protection of religious minorities in America and around the globe.

This book makes a single, sustained argument: Christian Nationalism is the religious belief that America (or Canada, or Sweden or any other country) was founded as a Christian nation AND that the legislative power of government must be employed to restore, maintain, and advance a national Christian identity. Christian Nationalism represents a dangerous counterfeit gospel circulating in the general church today. It confuses and conflates the mission of the Church with the aims of the State. Christian Nationalism is the contemporary expression of that deadly and dangerous doctrinal confusion-named Babylon in Scripture-that Revelation has been warning about for two thousand years. Prophetic Adventism, when true to its deepest convictions and historic content, is the only Christian tradition that has already predicted its rise, mapped its history, and shown its destination. Prophetic Adventism carries a biblical response adequate to the moment. And that response has prophetic roots. It utilizes scholarly documentation. It has urgent pastoral application for every pastor, elder, teacher, and believer who is navigating the current confusion between biblical faithfulness and Christian Nationalism. The naked Truth is still available, still sufficient, and still the only word that sets people free.

Four years of research, seventy-five scholarly books and articles, 300 bibliographic citations, ten conference and seminar presentations that provided critical feedback, twenty-five manuscript reviewers, and more than one hundred hours of organizing, writing, rewriting, and editing-all while carrying a weighty administrative load-have brought Truth and Lie before you. With this book, I attempt to speak to a wide range of readers. I write so that a pastor, a deacon, a kindergarten teacher, a college student, and a seminary professor can all read it and find it both clear and substantial. I purposely worked with intentionality-no chapter requires a seminary degree to grasp its content. And, prayerfully, no chapter insults the intelligence of someone who has one. The content is dense and serious, but I have written with everyday believers in mind. Illustrations, proverbs from global wisdom traditions, stories, firsthand experiences, life observations, and real-world examples carry the theological weight throughout. May every reader find blessing in these pages.